Literary Translation and Culture

by
sue /Aug 31, 2012

Literary translation needs to deal with a lot of cross-culture problems. To technically and naturally cope with domestication and foreignization are of crucial importance. And the different ideas of social and history context also convey a lot in translation. Faithfulness and exact of the translation have to be achieved by well command of cultural context difference. When translate culture-loaded text, literature in particular, domestication and foreignization must be adopted. They are apparently opposite to each other and have distinct characters. To concentrate on neither of them will be inappropriate and almost impossible.
1. Reflecting the Intrinsic Features of ObjectsHamlet: To be, or not to be: that is the question/Whether' tis nobler in the mind to suffer/The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune/Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
哈姆雷特：生存还是毁灭，这是一个值得考虑的问题/默然忍受命运的暴虐的毒箭/或是挺身反抗人世的无涯的苦难/通过斗争把它们扫清，这两种行为，哪一种更高贵？
2. Reflecting the Artist’s comprehension of lifeGONE WITH THE WIND: Rhett: “I hear you couldn’t even wait two weeks for me,” he said, and gives a mock sign! “How fickle is woman!”
飘：瑞特：“我听说你竟等不得两个礼拜！”他嘲笑地说：“女人真是水性扬花啊！”
3. Expressing translator’s secondary creation
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
傲慢与偏见：凡是有钱的单身汉，总想娶位太太，这已经成了一条举世公认的真理
A TALE OF TWO CITIES: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.''
双城记：那是最美好的时代，那是最糟糕的时代；那是智慧的年头，那是愚昧的年头；那是信仰的时期，那是怀疑的时期；那是光明的季节，那是黑暗的季节；那是希望的春天，那是失望的冬天
Above is the brief interpretation of some notes in literature translation--- the combination of domestication and foreignization, necessary common sense of cultural context. According to the preceding analyses and comparisons, we can come to the following conclusions: literary style not only can be translated but also should be reproduced as much as possible, and identification and comprehension of the original style is the foundation of style reproduction, and style should be reproduced as a whole rather than being done as the simple numeric operation, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, however, there are still limitations of reproduction of style and it calls for translator’s subjectivity, therefore, the translator’s style is objective and inevitable.